Robert Stein (1950)

Robert Stein (1972)

Robert Stein (2000s)

About Me

editor, publisher, media critic and journalism teacher,
is a former Chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and author of “Media Power: Who Is Shaping Your Picture of the World?” Before the war in Iraq, he wrote in The New York Times: “I see a generation gap in the debate over going to war in Iraq. Those of us who fought in World War II know there was no instant or easy glory in being part of 'The Greatest Generation,' just as we knew in the 1990s that stock-market booms don’t last forever.
We don’t have all the answers, but we want to spare our children and grandchildren from being slaughtered by politicians with a video-game mentality."
This is not meant to extol geezer wisdom but suggest that, even in our age of 24/7 hot flashes, something can be said for perspective.
The Web is a wide space for spreading news, but it can also be a deep well of collective memory to help us understand today’s world. In olden days, tribes kept village elders around to remind them with which foot to begin the ritual dance. Start the music.

Monday, February 02, 2009

The Bipartisan Tango

The Washington air is filled with fake piety as Republican survivors of 2008 try to feign amity with a popular president and vote against him by making villains out of Congressional Democrats.

In the House, they lined up unanimously against the stimulus bill, despite more schmoozing with Barack Obama than any recent president, while blaming Nancy Pelosi for their disaffection.

Pointing out Obama's belief that "economic recovery is about psychology as well as money and that Americans will have more confidence in the future if they see the nation's politicians cooperating to resolve the crisis," E. J. Dionne Jr. notes in the Washington Post:

"If achieving bipartisanship takes priority over the actual content of policy, Republicans are handed a powerful weapon. In theory, they can keep moving the bipartisan bar indefinitely. And each concession to their sensibilities threatens the solidarity in the president's own camp."

The test will come this week in the Senate, where the bipartisan tango will be less robotic as real bargaining beyond posturing begins. The battles will be over increasing infrastructure spending, government-backed low-interest mortgages and how to target tax cuts, among other issues. (Nostalgia note: John McCain is still railing about pork.)

Meanwhile, legislators in both parties are still trying to parse the Obama definition of bipartisanship, Democrats worrying about weakening their agenda, Republicans questioning how much of it is window dressing.

Rep. Zack Wamp, who headed Fred Thompson's ill-fated primary effort, may have summed up the GOP position best: "We got the sense that he was very genuine," he says. But if Obama "comes and meets with us like that and it doesn't have an impact, it begins to hurt his credibility."